Recently, renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and solar panels have received increased attention as an environmentally safe, relatively inexpensive, and sustainable alternative energy source compared to traditional coal or gas powered energy sources for power generation. With this growing interest, considerable efforts have been made to develop utility scale wind farms and utility scale solar farms that capitalize on the benefits of these renewable energy sources.
As wind power and solar power become more readily available sources of sustainable energy, more and more utilities and private groups are putting in wind farms and solar farms to provide energy to the grid. As a result of the increased need and legislative mandate for wind farms and solar farms as a source of renewable and sustainable energy, more wind farms and solar farms are being built. The current systems and processes for installing and maintaining new wind turbines to wind farms or solar panels to solar farms suffer from certain drawbacks.
Typically, a wind farm is commissioned in steps, adding one wind turbine at a time. Each turbine is connected to the wind farm by loading information about that particular turbine into the wind farm system software, which is then rebooted so that it will recognize the wind turbine. This process is repeated for each wind turbine that is added to the wind farm. A major drawback is that each time a wind turbine is added to the wind farm, the wind farm software system must be rebooted to recognize the newly added wind turbine. Although installed turbines continue to run during the reboot period, there is no data acquisition done by the wind farm software system during this reboot period and valuable data regarding the wind farm and its operating conditions is lost. Additionally, during the reboot period, critical wind farm system alarms may go unnoticed. Furthermore, current wind farm software systems only read the wind farm hardware configuration data at the startup to generate real time objects. Any hardware configuration change in the wind farm hardware configuration database after the startup does not get reflected in the real time objects until the wind farm software system is restarted or rebooted.
Similarly, a solar farm is also commissioned in steps, adding one solar panel to the solar panel array at a time and then connecting the individual solar panels or array to an inverter. Each solar panel is connected to the solar farm by loading information about that particular solar panel and corresponding inverter into the solar farm software system, which is then rebooted so that it will recognize the solar panel and inverter. This process is repeated for each solar panel or array of solar panels and inverters that is added to the solar farm. A major drawback is that each time a solar panel is added to the solar farm, the solar farm software system must be rebooted to recognize the newly added solar panel. Although the installed solar panels/arrays and inverter configurations continue to run during the reboot period, there is no data acquisition done by the solar farm software system during this reboot period and valuable data regarding the solar farm and its operating conditions is lost. Additionally, during the reboot period, critical solar farm system alarms may go unnoticed. Furthermore, current solar farm software systems only read the hardware configuration data at the startup to generate real time objects. Any hardware configuration change in the solar farm hardware configuration database after the startup does not get reflected in the real time objects until the solar farm software system is restarted or rebooted.
What is needed is a system that allows for the dynamic installation, uninstallation, or maintenance of hardware components of a renewable energy farm at runtime. What is also needed is a method for dynamically installing or uninstalling hardware components of a renewable energy farm. An additional need includes a system and method that allows for maintenance or updates on one or more hardware components of a renewable energy farm without requiring shut down of the whole renewable energy software system for the maintenance or update to take effect in the renewable energy system software.